Shaken and Stirred: The ebook

Sweater Quest: The Podcast

Sweater Quest: My Year of Knitting Dangerously

Green Toad Book StoreThe Green Toad is my local bookshop, which is the best place to go if you'd like a signed copy of Sweater Quest. I can drop down to the store and personalize a copy for you, too. Just drop Michele an email and she'll set you up.

Before the many things, a reminder: I'll be at Trumpet Hill Yarns in Albany on Saturday from 1-3 p.m. The always on-top-of-it timesunion Fiber Arts blog has more. Can I say again how much I love the fact that the Albany paper has a blog devoted to fiber? I love it. If you're around on Saturday, please come on by. I'll let you try on the Sweater....

In the middle of last week, we took a quick trip* to Virginia Beach, where we stayed for all of 48 hours and then drove home. To make a complicated story less so, my mom and stepfather, who live in Florida, was going to be there for a week and we could just manage to squeeze in a trip. It's much easier for us to drive to VA than to the FLA.

And so down the DelMarVa peninsula, which is full of combination shops where you could buy Sausage & Fireworks or Hair & Hats,** we went.

** First, the idea of sausage and fireworks is genius. Second, said peninsula is also full of chickens and chicken slaughterhouses. It's a wacky place.

*** A well-timed airing of OutKast's "Heya" by Bob 93.7, a fine radio station, saved me from strangling one of our bickering children shortly before we crossed the fabulous bay bridge and tunnel.

**** One last tidbit, that I'll put here because I can't figure out where else to put it - on our last night at the hotel, the place was in the process of being taken over by Jewish motorcyclists who were having a convention of sorts. I had never before seen a yarmulke with the Harley-Davidson logo on it. The world is full of wonders.

"Comparing the aftermaths of the Black Death and of World War I, James Westfall Thompson found all the same complaints: economic chaos, social unrest, high prices, profiteering, depraved morals, lack of production, industrial indolence, frenetic gaiety, wild expenditure, luxury, debauchery, social and religious hysteria, greed, avarice, maladministration, decay of manners. 'History never repeats itself,' said Voltaire; 'man always does.'"

Once upon a time, Lisa and Adrienne worked for the same alternative newsweekly. Now, both spend their respective lives mining their creative souls and leading hermit-like lives. And so an idea was hatched. Every week, one would send the other a sketch—either in illustration or word form—and the other would make a companion to the sketch. The result would be posted on both their blogs every week, just for grins. Even if the result isn't award-worthy, the exercise makes both minds more nimble. Hopefully.

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Signs that Spring has finally come to your small, northeastern college town:

Lawns are sprouting beer pong tables rather than daffodils

Freshly opened windows lead to overhearing more middle-of-the-night occurrences. Like, for instance, last Friday’s sounds of a vomiting adult followed by said adult’s drunk friend saying, “It’ll be okay, Charlie. Just wait it out.”

Your quasi-feral cat has started bringing you dead mice again. The whole mice, this year, which is a mercy when compared to past years when he only brought headless bodies, leading you to wonder if he was stringing all of the skulls onto a necklace he wore on special days.

Your animal-loving almost-tween has started to have rodent funerals again, complete with headstones and words of remembrance.

The undergrads have broken out the shorts and tank tops even though its only 50 degrees.

No one wants to take finals. Additionally, no one wants to grade them.

You play snow boot hokey-pokey, where you put them in the winter part of the coat closet, then take them out again, then put them in again, until it is July. You do the same with winter blankets on the bed.

For just one brief moment, when the sun is shining, the birds are chirping and the undergrads are not hurling, you are profoundly thankful that you seem to have survived the bitter, bitter end of winter. And then you start preparing to do it again.

On Saturday, the girl once again put on her nice riding clothes and competed.

But first the Boy did his impression of the Statue of Liberty. Because it seemed like the right thing to do.

The Diva on Lulu (who is also known in our house as Lady Lulu Who Farts A Lot, which I believe is on her family crest). This was Maddy's first year in a non-lead line class and she did a fabulous job. We are proud of how confident she's become.

"As I watched her sailing down the aisle like a romance novel heroine, a serious question formed itself under that powdered wig of mine. Might the lovely Kate, with her modest allure, her natural bosom and her quiet mystery, have the power to stem the flood of boob-jiggling hooker style which has engulfed not just fashion, but our entire culture? Could April 29, 2011 mark the beginning of a whole new era of elegant restraint?"

Once upon a time, Lisa and Adrienne worked for the same alternative newsweekly. Now, both spend their respective lives mining their creative souls and leading hermit-like lives. And so an idea was hatched. Every week, one would send the other a sketch—either in illustration or word form—and the other would make a companion to the sketch. The result would be posted on both their blogs every week, just for grins. Even if the result isn't award-worthy, the exercise makes both minds more nimble. Hopefully.

Lisa -

This illustration is too perfect on its own to ruin it with text. I mean. Seriously. What more could you ask for than a bald-but-hairy-shouldered man shaving his face in his boxers while standing on an Angry Birds rug? You can ask for nothing else, other than to give him spectacles and a pot belly and bemused eyebrows. But other than that, anything else would be gilding the lily, so to speak, even though lilies make me sneeze. I guess “gilding the gladiola” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.

Anyhoo. I can do nothing with this, other than to stand back in awe and wonderment.

Hope all is well in the Vol country. I also hope you remain tornado free for the forseeable.